


On Madness, On Friendship

by OnlySlightlyObsessed1



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: 1k to 5k, Canon Compliant, Episode: s02e05 Amok Time, Gen, essentially my take on spock's perspective on the episode, significant dialogue taken directly from the episode, there's some vague spones undertones i'm not the best person to judge how vague
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:34:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21700111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnlySlightlyObsessed1/pseuds/OnlySlightlyObsessed1
Summary: Spock's experience during Amok Time.
Relationships: James T. Kirk & Leonard "Bones" McCoy & Spock
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18





	On Madness, On Friendship

**Author's Note:**

> This might be the first fic entirely from Spock's perspective that I've posted. It's potentially more pretentious sounding than I'd like, but it's how it ended up sounding and I'm okay with that.

On any other day, every other day, McCoy’s professional eye and obsessive concern for the health of the crew, especially the senior officers, was a source of misplaced pride for Spock, something he admired, one of the Doctor’s best qualities. Today, after the past two days of increasingly finding himself being watched with a frown, with unsubtle comments thrown at him—he should eat, was he feeling well, was there something wrong, was he uncomfortable, had he not been sleeping? —Spock had no more bandwidth with which to deflect.

“I was looking through my charts,” McCoy said, setting himself up on the treadmill next to Spock, far too close, wearing his overly casual undershirt and the standard red leggings, already sweaty from his half hour in the zero-gravity training module, distracting, “you’re due for a quarterly check up, Spock.”

He did not puncture the soft silicone when he pressed the button to turn the machine off, but it was a close thing. “You shall cease to pry into my personal matters, Doctor, or I shall surely break your neck.”

McCoy actually recoiled, hand stilled where he had been about to turn the treadmill on, but Spock could not maintain himself another moment and he was already fleeing for his quarters, shame and embarrassment and fear at war within him. Exercise had not helped him, perhaps meditation, more meditation, he could utilize a different technique—

Spock blinked as the door chimed. Nurse Chapel entered smiling at him, a tray in her hands, but his mind was still reeling. From the time he had entered the corridor to the second his door chimed was blank. His time sense told him it had been hours, but he had no recollection of what he had been doing, had he meditated? Had he gone about his duties? Adrenaline was still making his hands shaky and his chest tight. He felt as keyed up and on edge as he had upon leaving, and Nurse Chapel was there, pressing the tray into his hands face and emotions open, spilling into him where his shields were failing.

The wrongness of it over whelmed him. She was there in front of him, unknowingly bleeding care and concern into the space around her, but he could not give her what she wanted, she should not be there. Suddenly, he was furious.

“What is this?”

She shrank back from him, opening the door again. He hurled the tray away from himself, barely hearing it clatter against the wall of the opposite corridor.

“Don’t keep prying!” Chapel and McCoy, each just as bad as the other. “If I want anything from you I’ll ask for it!”

Outside the door, Jim and McCoy, and others down the hall were watching him, and in that moment, his control, or enough of it, returned.

“Captain,” he said, taking a breath and trying to still his shaking hands, “I should like to request a leave of absence on my home planet. On our present course you can divert to Vulcan with a loss of but two point eight light days.”

Jim came closer. “Spock, what the devil is this all about?”

“I have made my request, Captain. All I require from you is that you answer it. Yes or no.” His voice tightened, he required meditation, rest, the longer he stood in the doorway the more his tenuous grasp on control began to slip again. A second passed and he could not wait for Jim’s answer. He left the door slip shut as he retreated to the safety and solitude of his room. Meditation. He required meditation.

His time spent meditating was obviously less helpful than he had thought, if Jim was correct, and he must be, then Spock was quite far gone. To have ordered a change in course without any memory of doing so.

“I order you to report to the sickbay,” Jim said.

“Sickbay?”

Spock did not want to report to sickbay, there was no purpose in it. It was his time and there was nothing McCoy could do for him.

“Complete examination, McCoy’s waiting.”

Jim did not understand, but Spock could offer no protest. He felt strangely disconnected from his body as he exited the turbolift.

In sickbay, McCoy stood bent over the computer console. He turned at the sound of the door.

“Come in Spock, I’m all ready for you,” he said. He and a nurse flanked the biobed.

“My orders were to report to sickbay, Doctor, and I have done so. And now, I’ll go to my quarters.”

But hardly before he could turn away McCoy was in front of him again, saying in the tone he took to give orders, “My orders were to give you a thorough physical. In case you hadn’t noticed, I have to answer to the same commanding officer that you do.” He paused and softened as Spock looked away slightly, putting and hand on Spock’s arm. “Come on, Spock, yield to the logic of the situation.” He let his hand fall.

“Very well, Doctor. Examine me, for all the good it will do either of us.” Spock could not afford to be swayed by McCoy’s concern. There was nothing in McCoy’s power that could circumvent the biological reality of pon farr, though Spock could not fail to be touched by his friends’ concern. In the past few days, he was subject to emotional reaction to every situation, all out of his control. McCoy flipped the biobed flat, and Spock tapped a rhythm on the side supports in an effort to maintain his control and focus.

“Leave us please, Nurse,” McCoy ordered. Spock lay still as the door swished shut. “Spock, this very serious.”

Here was the danger in this medical evaluation. With the data McCoy had collected over the past several minutes, his natural curiosity and intelligence, alongside the events of the previous days, regardless of what Spock said or did, he had not doubt McCoy would eventually come to the correct conclusion about his situation. That did not mean, however, that Spock had cause to explain it to him.

“What have you found, Doctor,” Spock asked, sitting up, but not attending to the data displays McCoy was investigating.

“Your hormone levels are in imbalance, no wonder you’re in such a state. If I can’t stop it—”

“You cannot,” Spock told him.

McCoy straightened and grew incensed, as Spock had expected. “I’m the doctor here, Commander, and I don’t think you understand, if this keeps on as it is, it’ll be fatal.”

“I understand perfectly, both the symptoms and their eventual progression. If you have finished your examination, I should like to return to my quarters.”

“Wait just a minute! Do you mean you know what this is? Can they treat you on Vulcan?” He had moved again to block Spock’s exit.

“Yes, Doctor,” Spock told him.

“Well then tell me how! I’ll start figuring something out here!”

“You cannot, please move aside.” Conflicting emotions flashed across McCoy’s face and bled through the air, Spock’s shield’s ineffectual at this point. Ignoring him taxed Spock’s already shallow reserves.

“Spock—”

“McCoy,” Spock had not intended to forgo using his title, “I will not prevent you from whatever measures you must take to reassure yourself. However, at this time I’ll return to my quarters. You have completed your evaluation and followed orders. Allow me to leave.”

McCoy stared at him for a second longer without stepping aside. “I have to tell Jim about this, Spock.”

“I understand,” Spock said. He had expected as much, considering Jim ordered the evaluation in the first place, or perhaps, Jim lent his command authority to enforce McCoy’s desire to conduct a medical examination.

Finally, McCoy stepped aside, but Spock felt his eyes on his back even after the door had shut and all the way back to his quarters. 

In his current state, Spock’s normal meditation practice was impossible. Aside even from the physical discomfort, his mind was in turmoil. Emotional control was so far out of his reach it was only possible to compose his outer appearance, and even that bordered on pointless in an empty room. He could not calm his racing heart or the way his limbs shook with energy that had no constructive output. He could not put away the fear and apprehension that colored his every thought. He could barely keep time. If he had more faith in his control, he would have lit a candle, but Spock worried he would lose time and cause a fire. He sat and monitored his breathing holding the faint link in his mind, turning it over and over and trying to banish any thought from his mind.

“Spock!”

McCoy was crouched before him, speaking loudly. So indeed, he must have lost time once again.

“Yes Doctor,” he said.

“I came to check on you,” McCoy said, at a normal volume, expression pinched in concern.

“Very well.” Spock did not move, wished he did not have to breathe, closed his eyes again. McCoy’s presence induced chaos within him. He did not wish anyone to see him in such a state as he was in, he could not trust himself to remain nonviolent as it was, even when he was alone, and yet, these were to be his last several days aboard the Enterprise, with his friends, before he must submit to complete madness, and a year confined to Vulcan with T’Pring. It grieved him that the madness was robbing him of his chance to bid his friends and crew-mates goodbye. McCoy and Jim especially.

The medical tricorder hummed about his head, and was shut off. McCoy’s presence, vibrant and easy to locate as Spock was unable to shield his mind, did not move.

“We’re going to reach Vulcan early tomorrow. As far as I can tell, your condition is holding stable. I know you can’t tell me what’s going on—”

Spock opened his eyes to see McCoy, face turned down and away, as he spoke quietly as if Spock were ill and resting.

“—and I respect that. I.” in his pause for breath, he looked back at Spock and their eyes met. “Well, I know there are things no one wants to talk about with their doctors.” He stood. “Jim and I will come get you, when it’s time.”

The door swished shut quietly behind him as he left.

They flanked him in the turbolift. It was futile and illogical to attempt to compose more than his outer appearance. He would give that up too in the coming hours. Fear pooled in his stomach. Spock did not want to go, he did not want to follow the pull of the bond, a weak link but with an all-encompassing hold on his mind and body.

“It is obvious that you have surmised my problem, Doctor,” he said because he could not help himself. “My compliments on your insight. Captain, there is a thing that happens to Vulcans at this time. Almost an insanity, which you would no doubt find distasteful.”

“Will I?” Jim asked, rhetorically. “You've been most patient with my kinds of madness.”

Most of all, Spock did not want to be alone. He did not want to return to Vulcan and face losing his mind surrounded by near strangers. Jim was the closest friend he had. “Then would you beam down to the planet's surface and stand with me? There is a brief ceremony.”

“Is it permitted?”

Spock’s gratitude flowed freely. Of course, thankfully, neither Jim nor McCoy could perceive it. He said, “It is my right. By tradition, the male is accompanied by his closest friends.”

The pause before Jim said, “Thank you, Mister Spock,” held their mutual understanding of the gravity of the conversation. A gravity Jim had been very politely ignoring until that point. The turbolift doors opened.

“I also request, McCoy, accompany me,” Spock said, turning to look at him, but with the curious insecure feeling that he was really asking Jim to ask McCoy for him, a ridiculous pretense of phrasing, but it made speaking the question possible.

“I shall be honored, sir.” McCoy said.

The presence of his friends would not truly change any events that were to come to pass, Spock knew. They could not save him, as overly dramatic as the thought was, from the biological impetus to marry, regardless of how much their presence was comforting. The day previously he would have been ashamed at his need for emotional support, but now he was beyond it. There was simply no space, amid the fear and regret and gratitude for feelings of shame. However illogical it was, he felt safer with Jim and McCoy at his side.

The consequences of his momentary selfishness, his lack of control, were dire.

“They are not outworlders. They are my friends. I am permitted this,” Spock heard himself say.

“ . . . How does thee pledge their behavior?” T’Pau asked him.

“With my life, T’Pau.”

Then T’Pring said “Kal-if-fee!” There was discussion and Spock felt strange and disconnected from the tension and fury pouring through him. Jim Kirk, he was to fight Jim Kirk, and that could not be. Jim did not understand, Jim was his friend. T’Pau did not listen.

“ . . . In the name of my fathers, forbid. Forbid! T'Pau. I plead with thee! I beg!” Spock could say no more, and she ignored him. He could not remember why he was angry, nor who he was angry with, he was handed a weapon and he fought.

Cool logical control returned to him all at once, moments to late. McCoy was taking the weapon from his hands, stepping between him and Jim—between him and Jim’s body. His own foolish, emotional, choice to bring them, and the price for his neediness—Spock had no time for self-recriminations. There would be a time and a place for appropriate grief, but now was not it. McCoy would take care of Jim’s body, of the ship, already he was doing so.

“As strange as it may seem, Mister Spock, you’re in command now. Any orders?” McCoy was standing in front of him, everything was strange and wrong, and while Spock had regained control, it was tenuous against the remaining hormonal flood in his veins and the shock that was still setting in. McCoy was there in front of him, having just watched him murder their captain and friend.

“Yes, I’ll,” he found the words slowly, “follow you up in a few minutes. You will instruct Mister Chekov to plot a course for the nearest Starbase, where I must surrender myself, to the authorities.” Was it correct to order McCoy to do these things? There were no other officers, but McCoy was not exactly in the chain of command. It was strange too, that McCoy said nothing as he walked back to Jim’s body and disappeared with the transporter.

Spock was not much better composed when he returned to the ship himself. In fact, he had arrived through the doors of sickbay before he remembered that it was not appropriate to present himself to McCoy for discipline, Mister Scott should already be in command, and was expected to handle such matters, but Spock found he did not much care.

“Doctor, I shall be resigning my commission immediately, of course.”

“Spock, I—” McCoy began.

Spock spoke over him, not in an attempt to be rude, but because if he did not move forward with the momentum he had he would soon be overcome with grief. “So I would appreciate your making the final arrangements.”

McCoy said again, “Spock, I—"

“Doctor, please, let me finish. There can be no excuse for the crime of which I'm guilty. I intend to offer no defense. Furthermore, I shall order Mister Scott to take immediate command of this vessel.” In case he had not already done so, and to fulfill the bureaucratic requirement, since the conversation with McCoy was not likely to be sufficient. As he finished speaking, he identified something odd, McCoy and Chapel were practically smiling, had been cheerful since he had entered the room, in fact, and—

“Don’t you think you’d better check with me first?”

“Captain!”

Jim, alive and well, walked from the back room and for just a moment Spock’s control slipped. Relief and happiness as overwhelming as the grief had been led him to take hold of Jim’s shoulders, a genuine smile breaking over his features. “Jim!”

Behind Jim, McCoy and Chapel were smiling.

“I’m . . . pleased . . . to see you, Captain,” Spock said, composing himself. “You seem, uninjured. I am at something of a loss to understand it, however.”

Jim was smiling as well. “Blame McCoy. That was no tri-ox compound he shot me with, he slipped in a neural paralyzer, knocked me out, simulated death.”

“Indeed,” Spock said.

McCoy turned to Chapel. “Nurse, would you mind, please.” When the door closed behind her, he continued, “Spock, what happened down there? The girl, the wedding?”

“Ah yes, the girl, most interesting. It must have been the combat, when I thought I’d killed the Captain, I found I’d lost all interest in T’Pring. The madness was gone.”

It appeared as though one of them were to say something, but the bosun’s whistle sounded and Jim went to the comm on McCoy’s desk. “Kirk here.”

_“Captain Kirk, message from Starfleet Command, top priority.”_

“Relay it, Lieutenant.”

_“Response to T’Pau’s request for diversion of Enterprise to Vulcan, herby approved. Any reasonable delay granted. Komack, Admiral, Starfleet Command.”_

“Well, little late,” Jim said, “but I’m glad they’re seeing it our way. How ‘bout that T’Pau? They couldn’t turn her down. Mister Chekov, lay in a course for Altair 6, leave orbit when ready, Kirk out.”

“There’s just one thing Mister Spock,” McCoy said as Jim rejoined their semicircle, “you can’t tell me that when you first saw Jim alive you weren’t on the verge of giving us an emotional scene that would have brought the house down!”

“Merely my quite logical relief that Starfleet had not lost a highly proficient captain.”

“Yes, Mister Spock, I understand,” Jim said.

Perhaps he was teasing as well, but Spock said, “Thank you, Captain.”

“Of course, Mister Spock, your reaction was quite logical.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Spock said. The heady feeling that had come upon him at seeing Jim again had not left him, he followed as Jim made his way to the door.

“In a pig’s eye,” McCoy declared, facing the empty space they had left. He turned back as Jim did.

“C’mon Spock, let’s go mind the store.” It was a good a response as any, and Spock did not trust his own instincts to formulate an appropriate rejoinder. He followed Jim out.

**Author's Note:**

> I might make this a two part series at some point, I have a spones coda story thing half written, but regardless, this story stands on it's own as mostly gen, complete, and contained to just the events of the episode.


End file.
